Chiara Ferragni has a lot of clothes. And it’s becoming a problem. The dressing room is huge but duh, too small for all this – we’re pretty much pivoting on one leg in here. The piles of sweaters, jackets and bags are starting to block the skylight windows. The drawers with jewelry are dangerously spilling over. And the bulging, makeshift rolling racks are a thorn in her otherwise scrutinous eye. She’s looking for more vintage pieces but we’re running out of time. “Outside of fashion week I know where everything is,” she assures me in her cute Italian accent, “but now, it’s a catastrophe! I need to do something about this room because it doesn’t work like this anymore.”
On twitter they would call this #whitegirlproblems but for Chiara it has become her life. She’s Italy’s super star fashion blogger and she wears clothes for a living. C’est la vie. “The Bonde Salad” is massive. She launched it just about three years ago and according to her “it’s a personal style blog so it’s mainly about my outfits, but, as I always say, it’s a salad of my life (a blonde salad) so you can also find my travels, my shopping lists, my wishes and my experiences in general.” She writes every day because “it’s my kid and I love watching it grow up!” Her boyfriend Riccardo – they’ve been together for more than five years – manages the business side of the blog and does most of the photography. When I ask her what happens when they fight, she says sweetly: “We try to stay professional. But I can’t fake my smiles, so when we have a fight I prefer not to take pictures and post something else.”
I meet Chiara after Roberto Cavalli. She was sitting front row, like she does most other Milan fashion shows. When we arrive at the apartment an entourage of about eight people is twirling through the house. “We are shooting a little video today!” she explains. It literally takes two frames and the crew disappears. They will wait for her at our next location: Cavalli E Nastri, one of her favorite vintage stores in Milan. We have to finish by 4 PM because she has another appointment. I don’t ask where or why but I wonder how she does it. And I’m perplexed when she tells me she’s graduating in International Law Studies next year. She travels the world “organizing events to meet my followers all over the world”, collaborates with big brand names like Mango or Yamamay for whom she created capsule collections, and she has a dog named Matilda. A full roster for a 25-year old. What could possibly be the ultimate for this wondrous creature? Wait ’til you hear this: “My secret dream is to be featured in one of Jon Bon Jovi’s video; he’s my idol :)”.
